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From: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Semantics of Music?
Message-ID: <851@artsnet.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jun 90 04:37:36 GMT
References: <2370@aipna.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Organization: ARTSNET  Atlanta, GA  USA
Lines: 56

In article <2370@aipna.ed.ac.uk> geraint@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Geraint Wiggins) writes:
>> Can you recognize an oboe? I can teach you to recognize one, so that the
>> next time you hear an oboe, you'll be able to say, "that's an oboe." Is
>> your musicality dependant on your capacity to recognize (that is, to name) 
>> an oboe? No it isn't, because you might confuse an oboe with an english
>> horn, or sometimes with a trumpet, or sometimes with a cello.
>
>No, in exactly the same way as the fact that I may not be aware that I'm really
>colourblind doesn't affect me discussing, say, the work of Picasso.

Misleading analogy.  To use this comparison you'd have to be
deaf to timbre, which would, indeed, make it difficult
(impossible, in fact) to discuss orchestration.
You might be able to discuss some aspects of Picasso's work (those
not dealing with colour) but you'd be unable to successfully
discuss anything having to do Picasso's use of colour.
And you'd really have problems with Mark Rothko.

>> My point is that we can learn to name things which have physical 
>> ...
>> condition of the experience itself. 
>
>All of this is true. It still does not exclude the possibility of some direct
>physical or perceived or even artificial labelling relating musical "effects"
>for want of a better term, to concepts, for want fo a better term. A simple
>example of this kind of thing is the widespread perception that F sharp major
>is a bright key which conveys associations of light, happiness etc and that b
>flat minor is not.

But then there was at one time a widespread conviction that the
earth is flat.  The strength of the conviction, however, doesn't
make it true.  The conviction that a song is "happy" doen't mean
the song "contains" happiness.

>I'm NOT saying there definitely IS a semantics. I'm saying
>that I haven't seen a proof

What would constitute a "proof" in this situation?
Re: flat earth:
There were a couple of linguists studying certain rural dialects
in the southeastern US.  In discussions about various things the
subject of "flat earth" somehow came up.  The gentleman whose
dialect was being studied insisted that the earth was flat because
the Bible said so.  When asked, "What about airplanes that fly
around the earth" (as evidence the earth is round) his reply was,
"I never look up."

Cheers,

--Mark

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Mark Gresham  ARTSNET  Norcross, GA, USA
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